Another month, another 30 days of surfing the net to find interesting, entertaining, and informative links for you desk potatoes out there. Actually, I've been spending very little time at home surfing the net, as I recently found a job with an internet service provider that allows me to spend my working hours surfing, while at the same time trying to tell people on the phone exactly what they are doing wrong that makes their internet account not work. You know, I had a pretty bad opinion of the human race to begin with, but doing tech support has really confirmed this. Oh well, on with the column.
From my old haunts of Boise, Idaho comes a new scene page with the terribly original name of "The Boise Valley Punk Page" (not that my "Boise Punk Page" was terribly creative, but whatever). While this still seems to be a work in progress, it definitely blows away my old scene page by far. Here you'll find upcoming shows in Boise, a page of people who can help you book a show if you're from out of town, a page where you can discuss whatever you want (unfortunately, most people don't seem to be able to say anything here but dirty words), and a few other goodies. Hopefully they'll have added some pages for more Boise bands by the time you read this, but right now it doesn't look too bad. You'll find the page at http://home.rmci.net/kgb/ .
Moving to a different scene, Mike Blur has put up a killer page about the Lawrence, Kansas punk scene, from 1978 to the present. Mike seems to have appointed himself historian for the Lawrence scene, which is cool by me. I think every scene should find someone to archive and remember the punk bands, venues, and happenings of the past. Stuff like that can be a lot of fun to read (or remember, if you're an old fart). Anyway, if you have any interest in the Kansas scene, http://www.idir.net/~mikeblur/framehom.htm would be a great place to start.
I got mail from Kevin Doughnut the other day asking me to check out a couple of sites that he is involved with. First off is Bowling Doughnuts, which is an online zine with a lot of cool departments including record reviews, sound clips, Food Not Bombs and Poetry Not Poverty pages, interviews (including a recent one with The Candysnatchers!) and more. You'll find Bowling Doughnuts at http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Alley/3196/ .
The other page that Kevin is involved with is the Punk/HC/Indie Tour Dates page at http://www.pipeline.com/~bowlingdoughnuts/ . This page is a resource where bands (including those without their own web pages) can have their tour dates posted, so that hopefully you'll be able to find out when they are coming to your town. Bands with e-mail access can mail Kevin at tourdates@geocities.com, and he'll stick them up for you. My only complaint with this page is that he doesn't include an address where you can send him a (non-electronic) letter with your dates, in case you don't have any net access whatsoever. Maybe by the time you read this, he will have posted one.
Another project in the works is Fed-Up.Com (http://www.fed-up.com) which is intended as an online resource for zines and other writers to get their stuff published on the net. If you do a zine and would like some of your stuff published for the world to see, or if you are a writer looking for a place to publish your stuff, I'm sure Fed-Up.Com would love to hear from you. Check out their website and get involved, or mail them at Fed-Up E-Mag; c/o GMH Productions; 735 Delaware Rd. #318; Buffalo, NY 14223-1231.
The Godwalker is a decent site that contains a few pieces of writing, and a whole bunch of music files. If you are looking for tunes, the audio portion of this site will probably keep you busy for awhile. Music here from Born Against, The Bollweevils, FYP, Naked Raygun, Rorschach, and more. Remember, to hear this stuff, your computer has to have a decent sound card. Anyway, you'll find The Godwalker (I don't exactly get the name, but whatever) at http://www.cps.msu.edu/~walkerma/ .
There are so many online zines nowadays, it is hard to remember what I've mentioned and what I've forgotten. I don't think I've told you about False Sense of Security before, but even if I have, it deserves another mention. Interviews, chat, a flyer archive, and several other links are at this site. Look it up when you get a chance http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/7857/ .
Rocket Fuel fanzine is also online, and those of you into bands like Earth Crisis and Kerosene 454, or record labels like Caulfield should check out their second issue online. Interviews, photo archives, links, and other stuff you might want to read. Rocket Fuel is at http://www.ilstu.edu/~ddreed/ .
Let's see, what else this issue? Oh yeah, I wanted to tell you about the homepage for Wrench Records, whose bands include the incomparable English noisemeisters Rancid Hell Spawn. If you haven't heard RHS, you should... they are high speed, tinny, drum machine noise that sometimes hurts to listen to. Just my idea of a good time. Wrench also has a page about Sacramento's Lil Bunnies. All in all, a rather deranged labeled. Wrench Records are on the web at http://www3.mistral.co.uk/wrench/index.html .
Finally, I got an interesting piece of e-mail from Jerry at Insurance Scam Records (whose homepage is at http://isr.base.org , but really isn't complete yet). He wrote to tell me about this web organization called Monolith that will give you your own domain name (of sorts) for extremely cheap. Without going into too much technical detail, what Monolith does is provide you with an alias to your web site so that, (using my site as an example) if you wanted to go to the netpunk web page, instead of typing in http://www.cruzio.com/~hanford/maximum.html to get there, you could simply type http://netpunk.base.org (go ahead and try it, I set it up with them). If you send them 5 bucks, people can put in your shorter address and get to your homepage immediately. If you don't pay them, there is a 5 second delay (you'll notice I haven't paid them yet). Anyway, if you are interested in Monolith, you can check them out at http://www.ml.org .
I think that's gonna have to do it this month. Next month, I hope to take you on a WWW tour of the history of punk, but we'll see what happens. Until next time, I can be reached at http://netpunk.base.org , or via e-mail at hanford@cruzio.com. Of course, you can also write to me at PO Box 8059; Santa Cruz, CA 95062. That is all.
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